


The best

by anairim



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Day 6, Fake Dating, First Kiss, Get Together, KuroKen Week 2020, Kuroo cries a lot in this one, M/M, it's all over the place srry, kenma gets in a fight, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23751286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anairim/pseuds/anairim
Summary: Kuroo starts dating one of the upperclassmen. Kenma realises somethings
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 154





	The best

“I don’t care if Kuroo considers you family,” Yamamoto says. “I won’t excuse you if you slack off.”

This is one of Kenma’s most annoying teammates. Paired up with the upperclassmen, who are all shit heads and make him run more laps than the others, he is a nightmare come true.

There are only as many things Kuroo can do to defend him against the _senpai_ s that don’t result in him becoming a mark for mockery and ending up having to do all the cleaning by himself once practice is up. More than one time, he had told Kuroo to just let them be, cause he hadn’t wanted him to get in trouble.

What he _can_ do, though, is make Yamamoto stop harassing him with all his talk about _willpower_ and other puzzling shit.

But of course, instead, he just ignores him.

 _Try to get along_ , he had said to him. _You’ll be stuck together till last year._

Kenma didn’t make any promises.

“This has nothing to to with me knowing Kuro,” Kenma says now, frowning up at the boy before him.

“You need to grow your stamina.” Yamamoto is like a broken record: he can’t seem to keep a conversation up and only speaks about what he wants to speak, which is never that deep or too far from volleyball. “Kuroo- _san_ can’t always be there to cover up for your lazy ass.”

“He doesn’t.”

Kuroo scolds him just fine whenever he notices Kenma slacking off, the only difference between him and the other upperclassmen being that he can actually distinguish between lack of motivation and physical exhaustion.

“Especially since he’s so intimate with Harada- _senpai_ ,” Yamamoto finally says. “He can’t continuously fight with the third years cause of you.”

They are on clean up duty together today, picking up balls from the ground and bringing them to the storage room. Kenma intends to just stop listening to him and see how far Yamamoto goes on blabbering, but then he picks up an interest in what he’s saying.

“Harada?” he asks. He is one of the less vicious third years, nice enough with everybody but too unbothered to ever speak up if he even thinks the way his friends behave is wrong. Kenma looks at him now, chatting animatedly with Kuroo in a corner of the gym. He’s laughing.

“Yes,” Yamamoto says. “I think they’re dating. I mean, I saw them kiss in the locker room.”

Kenma blinks. “You’re joking,” he deadpans. Kuroo’s so bad at keeping secrets it’s embarrassing, thus if he was dating someone, Kenma would have been the first to know. Damn, if he had so little as a _crush_ , Kenma would have been the first to know. Who else could he talk to?

Yamamoto shakes his head, amused. “He didn’t tell you? Unbelievable!”

“Fuck you!” Kenma spits. “Get your face out of my sight.”

If Yamamoto is lying, Kenma doesn’t understand what’s so funny about it. If he isn’t, then he is a disgusting human being, cause he just outed Kuroo without his permission.

Turns out Yamamoto is truly a disgusting human being.

When Kenma asks explanations to Kuroo on their way home that night, he answers in a panic, then gulps really loud, then says: “I would have told you.”

“It’s fine,” Kenma tells him. And it’s true, Kenma isn’t angry, just a little disappointed. Cause even if Hamada is not that bad, he isn’t a saint and he still giggles when his friends make fun of the first years. Why does Kuroo like him?

“I’m sorry that idiot saw,” he says, instead.

Kuroo shrugs, then stares him up and down while they walk in silence to their homes, as if he’s looking for signs of his irritation or something. It starts to get annoying so Kenma gestures for him to speak up.

“Is it okay?” he finally asks. “Me being gay, I mean.”

Kenma already suspected it. Kuroo liked to watch him play online wrestling games and always wanted him to choose the most buff male character he could have access to, he watched male swimming on TV even if he didn’t know the rules and read BL which he hid from his father by keeping them secure in a box under his bed. Kenma had found them one day while he was looking for his phone in Kuroo’s room after having misplaced it. He hadn’t said a word, but they got him thinking.

“Is this guy sweet to you?” he asks, remembering all the caresses and courting that main couples in BL use to do to their partner. He can only guess Kuroo is expecting exactly that from a relationship. “That’s all I care about.”

He can see Kuroo’s blush even if it’s dark outside. In fact, he believes that if the people who live on the street looks out the window right know, they will see an ominous reddish glow walking down the road. Kenma stifles a laugh, cause Kuroo’s embarrassment made him embarrassed too and stops staring at him.

“He is,” Kuroo says and he sounds so fond of him and so _happy_ , Kenma hasn’t got the heart to remind him about how he and the others treat the second and first years.

“Thank you a lot, Kenma,” Kuroo says. “You’re the best.”

Hamada is a couple of inches taller than Kuroo, Kenma notices one weekend afternoon when he gets bored of being alone and decides to go see if Kuroo wants to play games with him, or even just watch volleyball together.

Kuroo’s grandma opens the door for him. “Kenma- _chan_?” she asks, confused. “I thought you were already here. Tetsu said it was you before.”

“Hmm?” Kenma knows Kuroo’s grandpa has got Alzheimers and that it is so bad he can’t even remember how to eat, but he doesn’t think his grandma has some too. In fact, he’s sure she’s pretty healthy. As to confirm his thoughts, she starts to get up the stairs, quickly, saying, “Let’s go check, I’m probably just imagining things.”

She seems worried, though.

They find Kuroo in his room, pressed against the wall opposite the door, as Hamada kisses him hungrily, pushing one hand up his shirt, holding his hair firm with the other.

All Kenma sees before averting his eyes is how Hamada towers over him, like a predator.

Kuroo’s Grandma gasps, “Gods!” holds her hands together, and Kuroo throws open his eyes, shakes Hamada off of him and starts stuttering incoherent gibberish.

She shoos away the third year from the house, insulting him heavily as he walks or, rather, scurries out of the door. Then, she smacks Kuroo, once on both cheeks, once on his mouth. “Not in my house,” she tells him, harshly.

When she leaves, Kenma can see tears glimmering in her eyes. It’s the first time she behaves like this when he’s around to witness it and he feels himself growing a little shocked: he didn’t know the sweetest woman he ever met could be so severe. It’s like he never really knew her.

“Kuro,” he whispers, tentatively. His friend’s lips are still glinting red from the kiss, his shirt still misplaced. He’s crying silently.

“Go away,” he sobs. “Or don’t look at me.”

“There’s no need to be ashamed, okay?” Kenma tells him, after he turned around to let him have some kind of privacy and some time to put himself together. “Wanna sleep at my house tonight?”

“Is she going to tell _Dad_?” Kuroo breathes heavily on the word. “I can’t take it, if she does I can’t take it.”

Since Kuroo can’t seem to calm down at all, no matter how Kenma tries to reassure him, he brings him to his house, tells his parents he’s crying cause he got overwhelmed for his Granpa’s conditions and lets them coo over him in the hopes their cares might make him feel better.

Kuroo drinks a hot tisane Kenma’s father made for him and gradually stops heaving, he listens to Kenma’s mother tips on how to dominate anxiety and he thanks her as if he’s ever gonna use any of them.

When they finally go to sleep in Kenma’s room, they don’t even bother taking out the guests futon (only ever used by Kuroo) and they tuck themselves under the covers.

“I’m so sorry this had to happen,” Kenma tells him. He can’t help but feel responsible, even though he knows it’s practically Kuroo’s fault for not warning him. He could have just said he wanted to fuck with his boyfriend and Kenma wouldn’t have shown up. But mentioning it now doesn’t seem like a good idea, so he just shuts up and lets Kuroo put his head on his shoulder and cry some more.

“I need to apologise to him,” he says. “He wanted to go to the mall today. Should have fucking done _that_.”

Hamada calls right when Kenma is about to say he shouldn’t blame himself.

When he talks to him, Kuroo’s voice becomes softer immediately and he gets a very intriguing smile, like he’s seeing stars that belong to another universe.

“I’m fine,” he says and Kenma turns around in the bed because he feels like he’s interrupting something private and he doesn’t want to be an asshole. He hears Kuroo laugh to something his boyfriend tells him through the phone and can’t help but get a little frustrated at how easy it had been for Hamada, considering the fact Kenma was trying to do the same since that afternoon.

Two weeks later, Kuroo is weeping hysterically on his chest, holding on to him for dear life. His father had had unexpectedly no reactions to him being gay, so he’s not crying about that, even though Kuroo had said he would have preferred for him to get angry and hit him instead of just brushing it off and diminishing it, calling it a _phase_.

“Kuro, you’re scaring me,” Kenma finally says. He had just barged into his room, interrupting his online gaming session and thrown himself at him, without explanation.

Kenma _is_ scared, cause Kuroo can’t seem to stop and it feels like his sobs are about to break his throat. It feels like he’s dying in his arms.

He suddenly gets worried that maybe his grandfather finally passed and that’s why he looks absolutely broken, but then he says, with a wet and shaky voice: “He broke up with me.”

Kenma can’t make sense of the words immediately, but, when he does, a current of anger runs through him. His veins go on fire and he’s never felt so so so furious in his entire fifteen year old life.

Kuroo had done anything for Hamada: he had baked cookies for Valentines day, he had bought concert tickets with all his savings for his birthday back in January, he had to make coming out to his family before he was ready and now his family wasn't as close as they were before.

“Why _the fuck_ would he do that?” he asks, through his teeth.

Kuroo shakes his head on his shirt and Kenma can feel tears seeping through to get to his skin. “He said he doesn’t love me.”

Kenma holds him close, draws circles on his back to try and soothe him. “What an asshole,” he says. “What an absolute asshole.”

“I don’t wanna go to practice anymore,” Kuroo tells him and Kenma knows immediately now is the time to intervene. He sacrificed a lot for Hamada. Too much already. He can’t give up on volleyball because of a dumb jock who’s gonna graduate in less than three months.

“Don’t be an idiot!” He says, with the firmest voice he can manage. 

When Kenma was the one wanting to get away from volleyball cause he felt overwhelmed by the upperclassmen’s abuse, Kuroo had told him first and second years would be listening to him once they graduated, cause they knew how good Kenma was, how _necessary_ he was to the team.

“Who’s gonna be my captain next year?” he asks now. “You wanna throw it all away for nothing? It’s clear he wasn’t well aware how lucky he had been to even have a _chance_ with you.”

And then, Kuroo stops whining. He pushes himself away from Kenma’s shirt and wipes his eyes with his hands. He smiles softly, through the last of his tears. “I’ll buy you a new shirt,” he says. “Sorry.”

Kenma’s heart does a backflip. “It’s nothing,” he says, and he tries to convince himself it’s just cause he’s the witness of yet another injustice. Third years really are the worst, playing with people’s feeling.

“You’re the best,” Kuroo says.

“Can you help me?” Kenma asks Yamamoto, when they are both on clean up duty again.

Kuroo got to practice but he isn’t feeling great. He’s been silent all day, trying to shield himself from third years gazes. He doesn’t seem to realise Hamada looks completely unbothered by him and it seems like he’s unfazed by their break up. Completely indifferent.

“You want me to talk with Hamada?” Yamamoto asks him. “Because you wanna know why he left Kuroo?”

“Yes,” Kenma says, and he’s really ashamed to be asking this to Yamamoto, but he doesn’t know who to turn to. And Kuroo is still so whipped for the third year he’s incapable of doing anything well. “Kuro’s really sad.”

“No way!” Yamamoto says, throwing a volleyball in a basket. “ _Senpai_ s scare me.” Kenma knows he has to bribe him, but he was hoping it wouldn’t have come down to this. “What do you want to do it?”

“You wanna buy my help?” he says, then laughs loudly. “You really love Kuroo, huh?”

For some reason, Kenma takes that as an accusation and turns away. “Fine, I’m doing it alone,” he mutters. “If they beat me up it’s gonna be your fault.”

In the end, Yamamoto agrees to help him for free, saying: “I wasn’t expecting for you to be this affectionate.”

Kenma just wants Kuroo to realise Hamada is not the perfect guy he made it out to be. When they were together he only ever wanted to go on dates at the mall, never longing to spend time with Kuroo in some different way, only giving up and going to the cinema or to a cafe when Kuroo had been asking for a while.

“It’s just that something stinks,” he says to Yamamoto. “I want Kuroo to know, so he can stop wasting his time pining after him.”

They corner up Hamada in the locker room while he’s cleaning up, so they are the only ones inside. Kuroo’s busy wiping the floor of the gym so he’s not gonna be done soon. They have a little bit of time. It’s Yamamoto that does the talking and Kenma’s both grateful and glad he manages be that unworried about talking to a bully. He starts to think he’s not that bad, after all.

Hamada answers right away: “I wasn’t into him, if that’s what you want to know.” He sprays the lockers, then wipes them with a rag. Just the way he treated Kuroo. How fitting.

“I was trying to get this guy that works at the mall jealous,” he adds. “Cause he treated me like shit last summer.”

He turns up to Kenma, gets really close in his face and says: “You can tell him this so he stops moping around and actually gets something done at practice, how about that?”

He looks ready to bite, but Kenma is so so so filled wit rage he can’t even think straight. “You motherfucker,” he whispers.

“What’s wrong, little one?” Hamada says, with a sly, lazy smile. “Now you can finally get your man. He was always talking about you anyway.”

His grinning gets meaner then, so wicked it kinda hurts to look at. “Only shuts up with a dick in his mouth.”

Kenma’s about to leap at him. How dare he talk about the sweetest, nicest, greatest person ever like that? “Is that you?” he says and, without thinking, takes a leap at him.

But Yamamoto is quicker. He punches Hamada in the face, sends him to crash in the lockers and then grabs Kenma by the wrist, tugging him along to escape in the gym.

From there on, everything is a mess in Kenma’s head: Hamada follows them and actually gets his hands on Yamamoto a couple of times before they get separated from the coach. When they are asked why they were throwing fists, Hamada answers something stupid and far from the truth. Kuroo stares at him in disbelief, watching as a bruise forms on his cheek where Yamamoto hit him.

They both get punished with extra cleaning shifts and while they’re getting ready to go home, Kenma tells Yamamoto: “I’ll help you tomorrow.”

Yamamoto just smiles, hitting him on his back twice. “Thanks, man,” he says.

They might just have become friends, Kenma doesn’t know.

Walking home with Kuroo he tells him the truth. “He was fake dating you. We gave him a lesson.”

He expects Kuroo to break down and start crying, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just says: “I feel so stupid.”

“You were just blind. I’ve heard love does that to people.” He tries to sound convincing but Kuroo still seem a little out of it. “Stop thinking about him. He’s cancelled.”

“You and Yamamoto punched him for me?” he asks, smiling softly.

“Yeah, to defend your honour,” Kenma answers.

Kuroo laughs now and Kenma’s heart flounders. Hamada said he used to always talk about him when they were together. He kinda wants to know if that’s true.

“You’re the best,” Kuroo says. “If I tell you that maybe I didn’t love him either are you gonna regret everything?”

Kenma thinks about what he can get out of that fight. What he already got. He thinks about Kuroo and Yamamoto.

He shakes his head. “He deserved it no matter what.”

“Maybe I’m in love with someone else too,” Kuroo says, then. Kenma stops to look at him in the eyes. He’s never felt so so so expectant in his whole entire fifteen years of life.

From there on, things are a mess in Kenma's head, but at least Kuroo is kissing him on the side walk and everything is good.


End file.
